Simple Stories - Simple Vintage Christmas Lodge - Peace & Joy

Hi Everyone! 

It's Claire with you today, and for my first layout of the year, I'll be continuing to create with the beautiful Simple Vintage Christmas Lodge collection from Simple Stories. You can find it in the shop here.

My resolution for 2023 is to minimise waste - whether that be food and cooking or indeed scrapbooking. With this in mind, I wanted to set myself a challenge this month to see just how far I could stretch my supplies, and see how versatile a Christmas collection can really be.

So for my first layout, I wanted to use up some of the leftover patterned papers. I decided to use the technique of filling shapes with paper strips, creating a fun and vibrant anchor for my photo to sit on.

Of course, I started with a sheet of 12x12 Premium White Cardstock. I used a circle cutter to cut two circles, each roughly 4" in size which I backed with 1" strips of patterned paper.

The papers I used were:

• Boughs of Holly (b side)
• 3x4 Christmas Elements (b side)
• Good Cheer

Once both circles were filled, I used a punch to create a circular photo. Unusually for me, I decided not to give it a white border or back it with any more paper as I wanted it to feel blended with the two patterned paper circles, and I thought more paper may be distracting.

I layered it on foam pads before adhering directly to the page.

Then came the embellishing! There are so many beautiful embellishment options in this range - It's quite hard to scale back and not throw everything at it as it's all so pretty.

In the end, I opted for some foliage from the Woodland Bits & Pieces Ephemera Pack (my favourite!), some puffy stickers from the Foam Stickers and some ephemera from the standard Bits & Pieces Pack.

For my title, I used the Foam Stickers - these are awesome, taking all the stress out of deciding on what to call your layout. I laid this directly on the page, overlapping the circles to ensure it 'belonged' as an integral element of the design.

When layering, I incorporated some of the ephemera from the Bits & Pieces pack to create a small cluster. Similarly, I created a cluster at thee top of the design using the tags and foliage pieces to bring it all together.

Once all the elements were in place, I added some Nuvo Glitter Drops in Golden Sunset to act as a frame for the design.

As a finishing touch, I trimmed the edges of 3 sides of the page, creating small insets for patterned paper to peek through, acting as a delicate border for the layout.

I hope you've enjoyed this page. I'll be back later this month with another layout, which sees this collection used to create a none-festive page.

See you then :)

Take care,

Claire

@scrappysoulmate

Simple Stories - Summer Lovin' - Fun!

Hi everyone!

Claire here. Hope you had an amazing Bank Holiday weekend celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee! I was certainly glad of the long weekend and even managed to squeeze in some scrapping!

This month, I am creating with the Simple Stories Summer Lovin' collection and oh boy it's a beauty! The collection is full of vibrant colours, fun patterns, florals and ephemera to make documenting your summer stories a breeze.  You can find it in the shop here.

For my first page, I was drawn to the Beatin' The Heat paper - a blue background paper design filled with hosepipes! It immediately made me think of these photos and I knew I wanted to scrap them.

I started with a mixed media background. I applied Distress Oxide Ink in Salty Ocean, Cracked Pistachio and Lucky Clover to my page using a dry stencil brush, adding wet splatters on top.

I created an offset mat as the anchor of my page, using a piece of Typhoon Bazzill Cardstock and Sweet Summertime paper, distressing the edges and layering each piece on foam for extra height.

Next, I positioned my photos into the Chipboard Frames - So colourful and perfect for making a relatively quick layout as it immediately provides a really striking central point of interest.

For the embellishing of this page, I mostly used the Page Pieces. It's a smaller embellishment pack containing 13 pieces including titles and cute ephemera. I positioned the deck chair and paddling pool to the bottom right corner, and also used the tree. I cut the tree in half, placing each piece on either side of my photo frames.

I couldn't resist using the Fun! Foam Sticker for my title, placing it on top of my frame. 

I embellished with a small cluster of flowers, fussy cut from the Simply Paradise paper. 

As a small extra detail, I also added a tab from the Journal Bits pack to the top of the frame.

To create a bit more depth, I layered flowers from the foam sticker sheet and some fussy cut florals around my frames.

Now, you may remember, my whole inspiration for this page was the hosepipe paper! I opted to fussy cut the hosepipes, using several pieces to create an outer frame around my design. 

I absolutely love how that turned out, and it was so much fun to do!

I hope you've found some inspiration in today's blog post. I'll be back in a few weeks time with my second layout.

See you soon!

Claire xx

@scrappysoulmate

My favourite Easter combined with Simple Stories Summer Farmhouse 🍨

Hi all, it’s Anna back with you today. I’m popping in to share a layout with you today. This layout has been created with a combination of collections, something that I don’t do too often these days. 

I used a few leftover scraps from the ‘My Favourite Easter’ supplies that I have been working with lately and an older collection by Simple Stories - Summer Farmhouse -  that I’d been hoarding with these pictures in mind! 

With the sun shining, I wanted to move away from Easter with this layout and create something more summery! 

I used a sheet of patterned paper by Echo Park (here) as my base and selected a cutfile to use alongside my photos. I chose an ice cream sundae to compliment my photographs. I’ve used 6 pictures on this layout! 

I printed them all quite small and adhered them all onto the b side of ‘Egg Hunt’ from the ‘My favourite Easter’ collection. 

I backed the cutfile using vellum to represent the glass parts and Bazzill Quartz cardstock to represent strawberry ice cream! I backed the cherry part using a scrap of red cardstock and some yellow behind the wafer section. I added a few sprinkles (similar to these) too decorate the top section too. 

I then continued to embellish my layout by adding stickers from the combo sticker sheet - both images and word phrases. 

I finished by adding my title, a very appropriate foam word ‘yummy’ by Simple Stories Summer Farmhouse. 

Thanks so much for looking! 

See you next time when I’ll be working with Bella Blvd - Time to Travel! 

Anna

X

 

'Hugs & Kisses', using Simple Stories Happy Hearts, by Meg

Hello everyone, I hope you are well and warm! Today I'm popping by really quickly to share a layout using the brand new Happy Hearts collection by Simple Stories. I absolutely adore this collection, it's just so cute and fun! After finishing this page, I went straight onto the website to order more! 

So my starting point with this page was pulling out a few papers I wanted to use and I got straight into inking a section of my white cardstock with a mini Tim Holtz Distress Ink - these ones here, using the Abandoned Coral colour. I swiped it straight over the page and then dabbed some white gesso on top to sort of make it a little softer in some parts. 

Next I picked out some photos (I just love these ones of my little baby girl - I took them at the beginning of the first lockdown!) and began arranging them on the page over my ink patch. I decided on making a bit of a trio and cut out this mint green cactus and the 'let's stick together!' from the 2x2 and 4x4 Elements paper. 

I fussy cut some love letters and typewriters from the Hello Love paper and arranged it around my cluster, along with a fussy cut love letter mail bag from the 2x2 and 4x4 Elements page. I really loved how that all tied together and went with the title 'Hugs & Kisses', which came from the Foam Stickers pack. 

I finished off my cluster with a fussy cut paper aeroplane from the 2x2 and 4x4 Elements page (with my journaling written around in a loop-the-loop behind it!), some sweet little flower stickers from the Combo Stickers and few more Foam Stickers. I also spattered a few darker coral watercolour paint drips. 

The Bazzill coral cardstock Arroyo coordinates so perfectly with this collection and my page, so I used a little behind one of my photos to mat it. I also layered my white cardstock page into some of the Bazzill Arroyo cardstock and then on top of a corner of the Wink Wink paper, distressing both of the edges and trimming it back into a 12x12 page with my guillotine. 

And there we have it! A sweet page full of kisses for my little girl. 

I can't wait to play with this collection some more! I hope you love it too and you have a lovely week. 

Bye bye for now, 

Meg x

Carta Bella ~ Summer #2

Hi, it’s Anna back with you today! I’m sharing a second layout using the Carta Bella Summer collection. You can find it all in the shop here. 

For this layout, I started with the b side of the summer stamps patterned paper and tore it diagonally from one corner to the opposite corner. I adhered this to some white bazzill cardstock. 

The remaining corner of the layout was looking a little bare, so I added some stitching around the boarder. 

I used a 5x3 photograph, mounted on sunflower bazzill and the b side of summer strawberries.  

I cut out three of the large clusters from the summer day floral patterned paper and arranged them around my photographs. 

I tucked a few elements from the frames and tags cardstock pieces around the photograph.

I cut out one of the cut apart pieces from the multi journaling cards and tucked it in to the right of my photograph (I journaled after taking the pictures). 

For my title, I used a foam sticker from the simple stories simple vintage cottage fields collection. I also added in a few of the hearts and a butterfly from the foam stickers too. 

Thanks so much for looking, see you again soon with one more layout from this collection. 

Anna

X